We hear a lot about female characters being objectified as a goal or eye-candy, despite the growing number of strong, cool female characters. This generally culminates in feminists complaining that most video games are sexist and any man who plays them is supporting rape culture or some such nonsense. The common argument against this is that male characters are ALSO objectified as beefy, ridiculously handsome or muscular shirtless warriors and that video games are a fictional world of fantasy which is meant to depict people as visually appealing and most of the time, has nothing to do with men objectifying women. However, I've been hearing a rebuttal increasingly often that the reason for the male character design is for a projection of the "power fantasy" that all men supposedly hold. We play video games to be the strong hero with all these positive aspects instead of being eye-candy or needing to be saved. So the buffed-up, chiseled-jaw, shirtless good guy isn't there to be eye-candy for women or gay men, it's, supposedly, us simply living a fantasy as an idealization of what a real man is, saving some poor woman... What do we say to this? Because honestly, it sort of makes sense in the context of what video games are supposed to be. And if that's true, does that mean the "objectification" of female characters is true?